​WASHINGTON — The American Bankers Association responded to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection’s first Request for Information on Tuesday, suggesting reforms to the Civil Investigative Demand process.

Acting BCFP Director Mick Mulvaney has issued a dozen RFI’s since January as part of an effort to better balance the Bureau’s oversight functions while fulfilling its important mission to protect consumers.

“We welcome the opportunity to provide feedback, and look forward to being a constructive participant in the Bureau’s public review as it seeks information on these important regulatory issues going forward,” said Virginia O’Neill, senior vice president of ABA’s Center for Regulatory Compliance. “The RFI process is an efficient and timely opportunity to understand whether the Bureau is not only protecting consumers, but also ensuring that consumers enjoy a strong, vibrant and innovative market that offers the variety of financial products and services they want.”

In its response to the Bureau’s first RFI, ABA noted that while CIDs can be important investigatory tools if carefully used, they can be and have been employed abusively in ways that violate reasonable due process and frustrate the pursuit of justice.

The ABA letter urges the Bureau to:

Rely more on standard supervisory practice to obtain relevant information, which would lessen its overdependence on CIDs to obtain information.

Provide the CID Recipient with more information about the underlying purpose of the CID and investigation.

Be more flexible granting CID modifications and extensions of time.

“These reforms will help the Bureau be focused and efficient in issuing CIDs while reducing costs and confusion for CID recipients,” said the letter.

ABA intends to respond to all twelve BCFP RFI’s, and will make those responses public.

“ABA appreciates Acting Director Mulvaney’s leadership at the BCFP and the timely decision to open up the Bureau’s policies and procedures to the RFI process,” said O’Neill.

The American Bankers Association is the voice of the nation’s $17 trillion banking industry, which is composed of small, regional and large banks that together employ more than 2 million people, safeguard $13 trillion in deposits and extend nearly $10 trillion in loans.